A thousand years
by Never the End127
Summary: 'He's been drowning all his life, and until he met her, Grant's solution had been to drag everyone else down with him. To kick and thrash and claw his way to the surface, even if it meant that everyone around him would sink to the ocean floor.' A series of drabbles about Ward's path to redemption- Skyeward.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N—Hey guys! SOOOO excited for the finale!**

**Anyway, this is a series of nonsensical drabbles that have nothing to do with each other. Just Ward's thoughts as he's falling in love with Skye.**

**Please note that there's no specific order or correlation between any of these thoughts. Let me know which one's your favorite, and I'll write a story about that particular scene based on popular demand!**

* * *

Ward hates the girl from the moment he lays eyes on her. She's ignorant, she's annoying, she's useless. He debates killing her when Coulson leaves him alone with her after installing 'the truth serum.'

* * *

Time passes. She's pretty, but he still doesn't like her. They flirt. He wonders how she would react if he knew she was Hydra. (She'd probably have no idea what that is.) They eat lunch together and she always shares her Oreos. They play battleship, and he lets her win.

* * *

She can't pull the trigger, and he almost admires her innocence. A big part of him wishes he still had that.

* * *

Skye looks adorable when she's nearly passed out and still on her computer at two AM. She's looking for records about her parents, and she doesn't stop and go to sleep until Ward comes in and puts her to bed.

* * *

If anyone had asked him what color her eyes were a few weeks ago, he'd have said brown. Now he knows better. They're a beautiful kaleidescope of amber and honey and gold, always glittering, always laughing.

* * *

Jemma Simmons throws herself out of a plane, and he learns that Skye is an affectionate, if aggressive, hugger.

* * *

Every time he closes his eyes, all Ward can see is his brother's face. When his hands curl around the burning, icy metal of the beserker staff, all he can feel is the stone ledge of the well under his palms. Her voice breaks against his ears, and he wants to snap her neck. It's then that he realizes he couldn't do that to her, ever. Not even if he could get away with it.

He starts sleeping with May, and for some reason he feels guilty. He likes being her friend, and he likes hanging out with her. She doesn't exactly follow orders, but it's amusing. He doesn't mind when she calls him Robot.

* * *

She gets shot, and Ward swears that he's going to put a bullet in Ian Quinn's head.

* * *

He thinks she's going to die, and for the first time in his life Hydra means nothing to him.

* * *

Skye finds out that Ward is Hydra, and he sees her cry for the first time in his life. He wishes he could take her pain away. He wants to make her whole and light and happy again. He wants her to be who she used to be for him.

* * *

She hates dark chocolate, and when he tells her he's willing to overlook that flaw in their relationship, she laughs so hard that the couple in the booth across from them stare at her like she's crazy. She doesn't care, so he doesn't either.

* * *

They're on a covert op, where they're supposed to attend a charity gala and gather intel on a suspect—a particular Russian socialite who was suspected of arming a terrorist organization in Nigeria. The mission was dead serious.

So of course, she shows up on Fitz's arm wearing the skimpiest, flashiest scrap of silk and jewels she can find. Fitz looks mildly amused. Simmons looks scandalized. May, in the corner, distracting the security guards, is rolling her eyes. Ward needs to stop looking at her. He really needs to stop looking at her.

* * *

It's been five years since the fall of Hydra, and Ward's still off on his own. He can't face the team again, not after what he did to them. Sometimes, Skye's name will light up on his phone after hours, when the rest of the team is asleep and she wants to contact him. It's so like her—too afraid to admit she still cares for him, too proud to truly forgive him. But still, she calls.

It takes everything Ward has (and that's quite a lot) not to pick up. He just has to tell himself that she's better off without him. Everyone is better off without him.

* * *

He runs into Skye when he's working with an alliance in eastern Saudi Arabia, trying to stop the expansion of territory owned by the Taliban. She hasn't changed much—her hair is cut to her shoulders and is feathered with light brown streaks. Her eyes are still kaleidascopes, honey and bronze and copper. They fight for the same side, but she still stuns him with an icer when it's all over.

When he wakes up, Skye and the team have left. She left a balled up scrap of paper in his knapsack. The note is poorly written and rambly, splattered with tears, which is making the ink run and it's hard to read in places. She's a terrible speller and he really has no idea what she's trying to say, there are so many words crossed out. But she's left her phone number and a tiny smiley face, so he thinks that in the end, she must have forgiven him.

* * *

She sings in the car, and he turns the volume of the radio up to drown her out. She screeches even louder, determined to make herself heard. It's both endearing and maddening.

* * *

They watch the movie titanic on his birthday, because he claims to never have seen it. Both of them agree that Jack and Rose probably could have just taken turns on the raft. No one had to drown. Skye cries anyways. When Ward asks her what's up, she declares, "Of course I'm crying, that girl just threw a freaking _diamond_ the size of my fist into the ocean."

* * *

Fitz accidently throws out Skye's hard drive with some old tech he had collected, and she just about bites his head off. Ward insists that Fitz trade places with him—Fitz, after all, isn't the one who has to drive home with her. Upon this suggestion, Skye non-discretely whips a tissue box at Ward's head. She misses terribly.

* * *

When they're moving into their new apartment, Skye finds some old Muppet movies, Fraggle Rock tapes, and other Jim Henson creations that Ward has had in storage. She then deducts that his childhood was not a miserable one, and that his future—well, there was hope for him yet.

* * *

For the longest time, Skye's got this running joke with Fitz that Ward's a robot from the future sent back in time to kill them all. That's before they know he's Hydra, and Ward can't shake the feeling of guilt and betrayal that claws at his chest every time he's with either of them.

* * *

They go swimming in the lake behind his old house, and for once he can't feel his younger brother's ghost lingering around every tree, fencepost, and stone. For once, she's all there is. They tussle in the water and he chases her around, but she slips out of his grasp like a fish. And then there's this whole thing where she tries to force his head under the water, but she's got the upper arm strength of a gerbil. He tells her so, and she tries to dunk him again while he just laughs.

* * *

It's Valentine's day, and Skye forbids him to spend money on her. Instead, she tears a clumsy fistful of roses and hydrangeas out of her garden and gives them to Ward to give to her. He finds it absolutely adorable, how surprised and grateful she acts when she receives them.

* * *

They take a shower together and bicker over the hot and cold faucets, because "You are a reptile, Ward, a little heat won't kill you," And "Cold water's good for your muscles, Skye, it's in the shield handbook."

"That's a lie."

"Is not."

"Shut up." She drags his mouth down to hers and kisses him through a smile.

* * *

He tells her he loves her right before he leaves the team, and she cries for a week.

Skye is possibly the sweetest, most chipper and friendly person Ward has ever met. But on the weekend when Coulson's out on leave (No one says anything, but everyone suspects he's with the cellist) Ward is in charge of work schedules. Simmons once described Skye as being 'so sweet, she makes my teeth hurt,' but sometime around one in the morning, she stars giving Ward this_ look,_ which clearly wishes him a painful death.

It says, 'Why do you hate sleep?' and 'Please just let the day be over,' and 'Can I got to bed now?'

That glare gets her the nickname of 'the terminator.' She only glares at him harder, but he doesn't know what she was expecting.

* * *

His marriage proposal is pretty uneventful. There's no ring, no ceremony, no reception—because they're spies, for god's sake, and fortunately Skye's never been into that kind of stuff anyways, so neither feels like they're missing much.

Their engagement goes something like this—

"Skye, do you want to get married?"

"Sure, okay."

He's so in love with her, it's like an ache in his chest.

* * *

He's suffered so much, and he's made everyone suffer with him for the longest time. Somehow, when he wasn't the only one hurting, it wasn't so bad. He thinks she's the solution.

Ward has a long way to finding redemption, he knows that. But Skye's here with him now.

Her hand is in his, and for now, that's enough.

* * *

**Bet you guys are getting tired of seeing this bar, huh? Let me know which is your fav, and I'll do a chapter. Feel free to use any of these as prompts!**


	2. Ink, Blood and Tears

**Hello darlings. Like to apologize for any grammer/spelling mistakes in this letter—I just feel like Skye would be bad at all of that, especially if she were upset. Upon request, I've written the letter that Skye left Grant Ward after their encounter in Saudi Arabia.**

* * *

_Dear Ward,_

_First of all—go to hell, you bastard. I hate hate hate you. And that's saying a lot, cause I've been through hell and back and I've been screwed over by a lot of people who I thought cared about me. So in_ _retrospect... __reterospeckt... __(Forget it) so looking back on it, I guess your betrayal shouldn't have hurt so bad._

_But it did, and I guess that means I care about you._

_I don't know. At first I thought that we were going to be friends and then we weren't, and then I thought you'd always be there and then you left, and Simmons's pen is running out of ink so I'll try to make this short and sweet._

_I am in love with you, Grant Ward._

_I'll give you a few seconds to deflate your head before I continue—got it? Okay. _

_Look, it's as __inconvinient__ (that's spelled wrong... screw it, you know what I mean) as hell and I still want to kill you, don't get me wrong. I mean, I am talking creative, slow methods of revenge. I'm talking castration with a pair of safety scissors, or smashing your skull in with that damned beserker staff, or worse—just letting May loose on you. So yeah, my general feelings towards you are not good._

_Secondly, I'd just like to clarify that I said I was 'in love,' not that I 'loved' you, because there is a big difference, and after everything you've done I don't even know if you're capable of understanding what love means. I doubt it, actually. But I know you think you care about me, and I have a few questions about that._

_Like for instance, remember when you had your gun pointed at me and I was going to set off a bomb and kill the guy (You got me, it wasn't actually a bomb, the pack was full of some clothes and a toy for Ace and my laptop, but don't think that means I wouldn't gladly murder you in a heartbeat) and you said you would just take what you wanted._

_Like, what the hell does that even mean?_

_It's not like I'm expecting you to rape me or anything (you wouldn't live very long if you did, Coulson or May would tear you to pieces even if I didn't) but that is a seriously screwed up thing to say._

_On an offhanded note, I'm starving. I hope May comes back with dinner soon. I think Simmons is making salmon right now, which smells amazing._

_But honestly, what is wrong with you? How could you do that to us? I would have died for anyone on my team, including you, you jerk. And… and…_

_Damn it, I just don't know what to say._

_I mean, I get that you had a pretty messed up childhood. But then so did I, and I'm not a serial killer. But it's been two years, Ward. I hate you and I miss you. You're a terrible, terrible person and when I think about all the things you've done I feel like I'm going to hell just for wishing that you're safe, wherever you are. There. I said it. You're weak and you're pathetic and you're evil._

_And you're mine, whether I like it or not._

_God, I am so going to burn this as soon as I have the chance._

_I guess there's a pretty good chance that even if I do send this, you won't find it. Cause I know you're like, super paranoid and it's unlikely that any mail will ever reach you wherever you are—so, in the event that this rambling love/hate note falls into the hands of some really confused Arabian goat herders who have no idea what I'm talking about, just try to be grateful that you don't understand and get on with your daily lives._

_(Also, if you could throw this in the nearest mail box, that'd be great. Although I guess you probably don't speak English so I'm just wasting time here.)_

_Anyways. Grant. You were a good SO, I'll give you that. Actually preparing me, you know, not just totally hanging me out to dry in hopes that I'd get killed in a fight and you could have gotten me out of the way a lot easier. So thanks, I guess. To Grant Ward—for not being as much of a selfish, manipulative, lying son of a bitch as he may have been. I guess I technically owe you one._

_This is a weird feeling, you being gone. You know? It's like if Obi Wan Kanobi went to the dark side instead of Anakin and his padawan was the one who had to take him down._

_That was a cool analogy, I'm pretty proud of myself for coming up with that one._

_I'm running out of room and ink, so I feel like I should wrap things up. By the way, these are not teardrops making my writing all smudgy. It's just a really runny pen. Also, it is raining outside. And that's how I always write._

_God damn it, just come back to me, you selfish bastard._

_Love, Skye._

_PS: __I fully intend to burn this, just as soon as I can find Simmons and ask to borrow some matches from the lab._

* * *

Ward was laughing by the time he'd read the whole thing, and there was an strangely warm sting behind his eyes that he hadn't experienced since childhood. Deciding that tears didn't suit him, Ward folded the letter and slid it into the pocket of his jacket.

On the back of the note, she's hastily scribbled her phone number.

"I love you too, Skye." Ward murmured at the blur of the Russian landscape whizzing past outside the train window.

He'd been staring at the fields of icy, barren gray that wound around the Atai mountains for nearly twenty hours now. Before he had read her letter, the torn, water-damaged paper of her hastily scribbled note had been the only thing worth looking at. Now he knows better.

Because above all the ice and dark and gray was the evening summer sky. Bold and beautiful and glowing, the sun rising up out of a valley of bruised earth and shining through the skeletons of dead trees. It was light and good and ignorant of the struggle raging on inside his head.

The sky was alive with light.

* * *

**I know, another sky metaphor. Couldn't help myself. Any other ideas or prompts?**


	3. Desert Flowers

**A/N- Okay, a lot of people have been asking for a proposal story- so here it is! In which Ward and Skye take a road trip and Ward is spontaneous. And possibly a little drunk, who knows. (Honestly, who proposes like these two did? Where do I get these ridiculous ideas?) Enjoy!**

* * *

They were flat on their backs in the middle of nowhere when Ward said it.

Skye and Ward have never followed the customary rules of dating—no one ever got dressed up, neither of them spent any money or went anywhere remotely close to people.

They threw an old comforter into the backseat of his car and drove out to the most remote and uncivilized space they could find. Sometimes it was an abandoned, rundown motel in the middle of a desert or a wheat field in Colorado. It really all depended on where the bus was parked—one of their favorite spots, a place they were very unlikely to visit again, had been in the French country side, in a valley called Roux with a little crystalline stream rushing through it, 'shaped like a cheese curl,' as Skye remembered.

Ward wasn't entirely sure where they were today—wasn't even sure they could make it back. But Coulson was pretty unlikely to leave without them. He was well aware of their mid-day outings, and on a few memorable occasions had to go after them when they got lost.

"It's cute when Fitzsimmons do it, Ward." He had sighed tiredly as he accepted Skye's relieved hug moments after locating them in the middle of a pine forest in Canada. "But you used to be one of our best agents. Try a little harder not to lose this one, okay?"

Skye's eyes had lit up at that, and she had held up her outstretched hand in demonstration. What looked like blue-white lightning crackled across her palm. Jagged plasma sparking at the edges—for a moment, her eyes when black and she was terrifying. Terrifying and beautiful.

"Yep. If you let anything happen to me, God help you." Skye had said smugly.

Today they were sprawled across the hideous orange and gray flowered comforter with the sun bearing down on them.

"Where do you think we are?" Skye asked, leaning towards him with her head in her hand. The colorful leather cords and wooden beads looped around her wrist slipped down to her elbow. A feathery curl of fawn-brown hair fell in her eyes.

"No idea." Ward grinned, and the feeling was so strange when it wasn't being forced and when his amusement wasn't arrogance. She had that effect on him. Not that he would ever share that with her. He hooked the stray curl behind her ear. "Probably somewhere in Africa."

She laughed and wriggled her toes deeper into the burning sand. "I know_ that_."

Somehow, this isn't how Ward expected the Savannah to look like—the pictures he had seen had showed a vast, flat plain of dust and tall grass, speckled with various animals with teeth and spots and stripes. This really looks more like Mars.

They rocky ground they're resting on now is burning hot, even through the thick material of the bed cover. All around them is ruddy red sand that falls in uneven crests and dips across the plain. They're at the edge of a slope that fades down into patchy threads of yellowing grass and crackling arrow root.

Ward finishes pulling the thorns off of a pretty purple desert flower that Skye had pointed out earlier—thin prickles were still lodged in his fingers, and he scratched at his thumb quietly.

"Told you I'd show you Africa, didn't I?" He turned his head and saw her staring up at the warm, dark blue sky.

"Look how many stars." She gushes, smiling. "This is beautiful, Grant. I love it here. We're gonna live here someday."

"Yeah?" If anyone else had said it, Ward would have felt compelled to launch into a speech pointing out all the gaping holes in this plan. But it was Skye, and his lips tugged upwards into a smile.

"Yeah." She said. "We could just stay here forever."

At this, he had to ruin it. "Well, sure, if we could go for months without water and learn to deal with the whole starvation issue—oh, and then there are the predators—"

"Okay, okay." She laughed and stuck out her tongue. "You've made your point, Grant."

She looks beautiful right now, her eyes darkened with power and her fingers crackling with light as she holds up her hands in a playful warning. "I _could_ shock you, you know."

It's an empty threat, of course. The closest Skye's ever come to using her powers against any of them was when she touched an electrical appliance the same time they did. And then there was that one instance when she had been possessed by an alien-robot-hybrid thing…

But they were trying to forget about that one.

There are so few girls that can get away with not wearing makeup. Skye is with no doubt one of them.

She never wears makeup around him anymore, especially now. And she's got flaws; there are these little freckles across the bridge of her nose, which look stranger with her tanned skin. Her eyelashes are pale at the very tips, and her lips are chapped and pale. But her skin is still so young and smooth and pretty, the color of coffee with milk. Her eyes are bright and beautiful, even when they're shot with electricity and darkness—she's soft and she's warm and Ward loves her.

Granted, he never actually says that. But she knows it.

She falls back under her blanket of stars and sends up a cloud of rust-colored sand. It's then that Ward is reminded just how much she doesn't belong here, and that asking her to marry him will tie her permanently to this world in ways he has no right to secure. The Earth is as much of a toy to her as it is a home—a place that she can control and bend to her will.

Skye is a goddess in a sea of normality and averageness, wanting to be as insignificant and plain as the rest of them were. She wanted so badly to be human, and that was the only thing convincing Ward that this was the right thing to do.

"Skye?" He hummed after a few more moments of silence.

"Yeah?" Her head fell back against his shoulder.

He took a deep breath. "Skye, do you want to get married?"

"Sure, okay."

And that was that.

She lounges against his arm and laughs as he attempts to mold the little purple flower (which is probably a weed, not that he could tell. But Skye's got this thing for gardening and regardless, it seemed much more personal than a diamond.

That doesn't mean he doesn't want to spend money on her, though. He's not too great with words—his credit card is the only weapon in his arsenal.

"This is lovely." She sighed, playing with the petals.

"But I want to buy you a real ring too, one with a diamond." Ward protested. Skye may be able to get out of things like Valentine's day and Christmas (forcing him to resort to intangible gifts such as a higher level of security clearance or otherwise unsuccessful, sticky handmade crafts) but this is where he drew the line.

"It's stupid that you have to pay for the ring." She insisted. "And as a woman of the twenty-first century, I feel obligated to prevent you from spending money on something I'm probably going to lose."

He huffed indignantly. "Stop acting so innocent." He protested, looping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her back on top of him. "Didn't you once steal that eighty-thousand-dollar pendant from a jewelry showcase to fund your Rising Tide schemes—"

"I was seventeen, Ward. I shouldn't have told you that, you find it far too funny."

He laughed, as if to prove her point, and she shoved him.

A few more moments of silence elapsed before Skye decided too much time had passed since she last said something unfathomable and crazy.

"Let's just get married now." Skye announced as casually as if she was suggesting they have scrambled eggs for breakfast.

Ward gaped at her. "Now?"

"Sure." She shrugged casually. "I mean, you tore down my suggestion to have us live here with your annoying logic,_ Spock_. So…" She reached up and twisted her fingers into his hair. "Let's get married here."

Ward made a noise remnicent of that of a dying cat. "What? How?"

She shrugged. "Guess we'll have to get it done legally at some point—but the Athorian ceremony is fairly straightforward."

Ward grinned into her neck, all teeth. "Really? And how do people get married on Athoria?"

"Well…" She grinned back and snuggled closer. "We give each other gifts, make the promise, and then consummate the ceremony."

Ward raised an eyebrow.

"We have sex." Skye clarified. She beamed, then frowned suddenly. "Usually not in front of people. Yeah, that's… definitely discouraged. Obviously, Athorian marriages aren't quite as public as Earthern marriages. It's usually a very private and intimate ceremony."

"Well, this is about as private as we can get, sweetheart." Ward laughed as a dry desert wind brushed her hair into his face once again.

She bit her lip nervously. "Coulson and the team…"

"Aren't going to come looking for us for another four hours." Ward reminded her. "So. Marry us."

He gave her time to laugh before she rolled off of him and reached over into her knapsack. "Well, the gifts are supposed to be handmade and stupid elaborate… and I honestly don't know why I still have this… gosh, I need to clean out my bag… ah-hah!"

Skye beamed in triumph, producing from her bag a glowing silver bracelet. "My shield-issued electricity monitor—I have a theory that since it kept me away from technology, it'll stop me from shocking you in the future."

Ward laughed—a real, honest laugh and pulled the bracelet over his fingers. It didn't quite fit. "I can't believe you kept this."

He slips the flower off of her finger and twists the deadened, yellow stem apart. Tucks the blossom behind her ear, runs a finger down her cheek, kisses her pulse point and laces his fingers through hers.

"Now," Skye murmurs, drawing her fingertips down over his chest, "The promise. Or, I guess you Eartherns call it a vow, but that's not how it translates for us. So… repeat after me."

"Aatmajla dje itchicma noras tlee—" The words rolled off her tongue like song notes, sweet and high and flowing together until Ward couldn't tell one word from another.

"Atmajili de ichima norse telay—"

Skye erupts into laugher and batters her fists weakly against his chest as she gasps for air. "N-no…" She giggles, and he rolls his eyes. "You're… you said something, something, turtle, jibberish, salad dressing…"

Ward groans in dismay. He speaks six languages—no, seven now—but for the life of him he'll never get ahold of Athorian. He trips over every word and it takes them minutes to get through the first line, full of interrupted giggles, song-like sounds from Skye, and Ward's 'choking camel sounds' as Skye described it.

Athorians are like the Chinese, not just in looks. Both of them seem to sing their language—in the particular language and dialect of Skye's particular home planet, each sound can mean a different thing at a higher pitch.

'Leiea,' when spoken in a low voice meant 'sea.' 'Leiea,' when there was a trill at the end meant 'cavern,' or 'ditch.'

Ward gets halfway through his repeated vows before Skye collapses on his chest laughing again.

"I love you." He says helplessly, because that's always his go-to sentence that fixes almost everything, as he doesn't say it very often.

"I love you." She breathes, dragging a stray lock of hair behind her ear. The straggly purple petals of the desert flower have fallen into her hair, and the stem of the weed is stuck behind her ear. The wind is picking up, crisp and cool and biting.

"Are we married, now?" Skye asked, smiling down at him.

"Sweetheart, what do you think? We haven't gotten to the 'consummation' part yet, have we?"

Skye's laughing when their lips go crashing together, and right then, she's the safest place he knows. She's the closest thing to his heart. There are equal parts of him that love and envy her—parts that make him wish he had that dark glow in her eyes and the warm light in her heart.

Right then, she's everything.


End file.
